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The Owner’s Room: When There’s Too Much Input to Tell What Matters · Integrity at Scale™

• Most leaders confuse not knowing what matters with being unable to tell what matters because of constant access and high visibility and basically information overload. So the things that we think keep us informed and you know, really on top of our business are actually the things that cost us our ability to discern. My name is Dr. Tara Vossenkemper. You are listening to the Culture Focus Practice podcast, and of course, thank you for being here with me. This episode is all about leadership. When we're not necessarily confused, we're not really feeling in crisis, but we are feeling inundated, not even just feeling we are actually inundated with too much information from too many directions. It's about how staying informed and being accessible have left us with sort of a sense of resentful obligation, and it's about noticing over time. That everything has started to carry the same weight, which means nothing is important, even though it should be. I am not here. Just to really quickly clarify this, to talk to you about hacks related to prioritization or systems or productivity, I am here to explore what happens when leaders are expected, which is sometimes self-imposed and sometimes sort of externally imposed to continuously absorb information and context and emotion and data and basically how that constant noise, the constant ingestion of all of this stuff, makes it hard to tell what actually matters true to form like any other owner's room, we will do this exploration by way of six questions. Zero of which I have prepped or scripted answers. I have no idea where they will go. And one scenario, and then that will wrap the entire episode up. So let's do this. Question number one, what does too much input actually look like in your leadership role right now? Ooh. And where is it coming from? This is a good question. My first answer is I don't know. I don't know what too much input looks like in my role right now. Because it's happening, I think that it's actively happening, so then it's hard to discern, which is sort of the point of all of this, what too much input is. Okay. However, with that said, let me think about where it's not too loud. It's not too loud on the clinical side of things. And so I have a DCO in place, a director of clinical operations, and she has a couple of clinical team leads and they have small teams and so they all sort of report to her. There's no sort of, they do, they all report directly to the DCO and it's very clear what her responsibilities are and what she is, you know, entrusted to do. If there was any input on that side that felt like too much, it would be the clinical projects, and I don't necessarily mean projects that clinicians are working on or that like any service providers are working on, I mean to say projects related to the clinical team that are. Kind of collaboratively done between me as a visionary and my DCO. And I think there's something that happens where I think something is done, but it's not for the other person. Which could be any number of reasons why. It could be that it was clear to me, but it's not to them that, um, I didn't, you know, document it clean enough, or I didn't think through all of the different threads before passing it over. And it equally could be that they haven't given it the time or attention they need. And so they're coming to me with questions about something that I think has already been answered or. They don't have the time to work on something, so it's not moving in the way that it should be, et cetera. It could be any number of those things, but there's something about projects right now that feels like a lot of input, but in terms of like the day-to-day functioning, it almost feels like none, honestly. Like there's very little input, which is relieving. I mean, that's kind of what I want, you know, on the other side of things. It just dawned on me too much input is in these like limbo periods where there are projects or systems that are in the process of coming to life, and accountability for bringing it to life is with another person. But that person needs my input and they need my vision or collaboration to make it happen. I hate even saying this out loud. Oh my God, that feels like too much. And honestly, that feeling like too much as I'm talking, I'm realizing is kind of reflective of I think the weight that I have felt. As of late. I mean, I think that that's it. Like I'm just, I think there's a part of me that is just so tired of carrying anything, like I don't want to be needed. Ultimately, I think that's what I'm like realizing as I'm talking like, oh, I don't wanna be needed. It's kind of not fair. Like if we want these projects to come to life and my input is needed. Then my input is needed. This is, you know, like sort of introduced in the episode I was talking about. Everything feels equally important, so then nothing is, it's sort of like dash from the Incredibles. Well, if everybody's special then nobody is. It feels the same way. These projects actually are important. The things that are getting delegated the projects, the, the things that need to be brought to life, they're important. They're important for a variety of reasons, not only related to infrastructure for the group, but also for bringing the vision to life, which is also, you know, for the group and obviously for all of us who are part of it. And there's just been so many other sort of constant. Drips almost like water torture, these constant drips that all I can think about is drip, drip, drip, drip. These things that are constantly playing in the background, stuff that I'm trying to get rid of that require ongoing maintenance, like payroll for example. I'm trying to, I am actually actively bringing on a payroll person. Um, so my point in all of this is that it's hard to feel needed when I feel like I'm also maintaining things that aren't things I want to maintain. So I think the too much input, how it looks in my leadership role right now unfairly, if I'm being really honest, I think it's unfair that it feels like anybody needing anything almost feels like too much that is not fair. It's just not, and sure I'm like actively working on getting rid of the maintenance shit that I don't wanna do and don't do well. And it still isn't fair that some of the outcome is that the people who need me are getting responses from me, but they're not getting a Tara who feels as enthusiastic about this as I could if I wasn't carrying that other weight. So yeah, there's also little moments where. I might get pulled into a question, but I don't want to be like, I don't need to be and I don't wanna be. And I think that that's just about growing pains, like as I continue shifting into a visionary role, I think for any of us is that we continue shifting roles or like more fully embracing something, whatever role that might be. There are, you know, almost like remnants of past behaviors and actions and things that don't fit in this current role, but it hasn't been explicitly stated maybe, or the person who's doing the asking isn't sure if it should be. You know, the visionary, for example, should be included or not. So they just err on the side of caution. And so I think it's just, uh, that to me just feels a little bit like growing pains. Like I could easily just say like, Hey, I trust you. You don't, you don't need my input on this unless you for some reason, like, you really, really have a wonky situation and you're not sure what to do otherwise, just do it. You know? So I think the growing pains are different from me feeling a sense of. Exhaustion at being appropriately needed in collaborative projects. So I'm gonna keep going. I think that's all of my answer to question number one. Question number two, what kinds of input feel most destabilizing? Ooh, this is interesting. Data, people, emotions, expectations, or visibility into everything. Oh, goodness. I wanna say unexpected people changes, but even that is usually short lived. For me, it is like the unknown. This is the irony in all of this. It's like the unknown feels destabilizing. Like if I, it's probably old attachment stuff honestly coming up, but disconnect equals not being able to anticipate a problem that might arise. If I am disconnected from people, that means I have no sense for their contentment or happiness or satisfaction or frustrations or whatever. So anything could happen, you know, anything could happen. So I wanna say any of these things could be destabilizing, but it probably is mostly about the unknown. It feels funny saying that because I don't know if that's exactly right. Let's do this in opposite way. Data does not feel destabilizing to me. It feels grounding, even if it's not good data. I just want to know. See, it's the opposite of the unknown is knowing. So data almost always feels grounding. Visibility feels grounding when I can look into something that I want to. So having visibility into everything. When I feel so inclined to look is also grounding. It makes me think about like having a telescope and you have a cap on the end, you know, and it's sort of like I can lift this cap up or I can change the lens out and look at what I want to when I want to. That feels grounding expectations. I think I feel neutral about those. I mean, I have my own people have their own, it sort of feels like people just have them and it's, you know, kind of whatever emotions have a high possibility of being destabilizing depending on what emotion and in what context and about what topic. So. If somebody's really frustrated about something related to finances, for example, historically and notoriously, finances and shame just go hand in hand for me. So it's immediately destabilizing and at this point I can be kind of quick to like reground, but that's something that's destabilizing for sure. And when it's unexpected also, it's like very much like, you know, a, a blast in my system and I have to like, oh fuck, take a breath and come back down into my body. And I honestly think that might be the thing that is the most, so I said unexpected. Definitely always unexpected. I feel like that's kind of a given for most of us. Unless you are, I don't even know. I would like to know your secrets if you felt stable in, you know, very unexpected circumstances, especially related to something that might already be destabilizing, like let's say emotions. Um, but people, I don't necessarily know if people's stuff feels destabilizing. Again, I think it just depends on the emotionality and also the expected or unexpectedness of it. So, yeah, I'm gonna move on then. I think that that's probably the gist of my answer. Don't actually think I have more to add, so I will keep going. Okay. Question three. How does constant access, flatten importance, so everything starts to feel urgent or equally weighted? Man, I love this question. I feel like it could be conceptually how does this happen or personally, how does this happen? I'll say personally it happens because. I am tired. Like if you, you know, it's like if I'm tired, period. Anything that, or just imagine being in a depressed state. You know, if there's thinking of like depressive symptomology, everything's kind of blunted and flat. Let's just, let's just take that and run with it. You know? I'm not saying that I'm depressed right now, but I'm saying like, just go with that as an example. If you were to say to that person. This project needs to get done. It's of the utmost importance. Like, we gotta, we gotta move, we gotta work, we gotta get on it. The response is probably not going to be an immediate move or like a, a quick shift in demeanor or anything that would like move things along faster or have an excitatory response. It's just going to be more of the same sort of this dull ache or this dull flat lethargy, apathy, mild indifference, alexathymia. You know, it's just like, hmm, low level. Don't really give a fuck when there is constantly things coming in. That is the not necessarily felt sense, but that's like the flavor of it is all of these things are important. There's no way that I can get them all done in either the timeframe they need to be done in or with the level of care that I want to give them, or with a sustained, heightened sense of urgency where my body's gonna go on the fritz. So the, I think physiologically, I think the response is like, ah, and I'm done. Like, okay, we're just gonna close this all down, and there's just this kind of flattened feeling that goes along with all of it. I think that's how it works for me. I can imagine too, I don't necessarily know physiologically what takes place, but I can imagine that there is something where constant strain on a system or constant pressure results in overload to the extent that the system can't actually function, it can't do what it was intended to do. Thinking about like. Amygdala responses or like heightened stress responses like it ends up wreaking havoc. Well, with your entire system, of course, having a heightened stress response, a prolonged heightened stress response, like access levels of cortisol for good, it like fucks up your system. Not only your cortisol system, but also the rest of your body, you know, so it's either going to be that everything starts to feel urgent. Maybe it does for a while that I'm saying I'm not sure how sustainable that is and for how long. There we go. At some point, I, I would anticipate for most people that that's gonna shift into equally weighted and probably flat and dull and with very little like urgency. I don't mean to keep using that example, but I do. I just keep thinking of Dash and Elastigirl in the movie, the Incredibles. And she says something about Dash, everybody is special. And he says, well, if everybody's special then nobody is. Well, if everything's important, then nothing is this also actually saying that makes me think about Gino Wickman. It makes me think about traction and the sense of having a very clear vision and a very clear VTO and a very clear core focus and. 90 day rocks, you know, 90 day priorities that are directly tied to your one year plan, and that one year plan is directly tied to your three year vision and your five or 10 year, 15, or 20 year target. All of these things are aligned, and so it's not like you are the one making this decision on what's important. It's like the system that you have built. Helps you make the decision on what's important. You plus your leadership team now are collectively agreeing, well, these are the priorities. Like these are the most important things we get done in the next 90 days. And so anything else can either get pushed or. We need to bump something that we currently have. And so instead of, you know, I think about a sun ray versus a laser beam, like that's kind of what Gino Wickman, that's why he came to mind, because that's what he references in the book. Something along those lines that you could have. The sun is glorious, but it's not gonna like cut through metal, you know, versus laser is this pointed energy that's going to either etch or like cut through entirely a sheet of metal, for example. The idea is that you have focused energy on the most important things, and I think one of the byproducts of that, if I bring it all the way back to this question, is that you don't have. A constant sense of being on or needing to prioritize every single thing that comes across your desk or in your inbox or up in a meeting, or what the fuck ever, you know, instead you have very clear priorities, and then anything else kind of gets put in line behind that. This also makes me think about, now that I'm on a roll, this also makes me think about Deep Work and Cal Newport's sort of queuing his project queue where he blocks time on his calendar to engage in Deep Work and everything else gets moved around that. But that's the priority. And the Deep work is based on the project cue that he has. And so it might be that the number one project is writing a book or. Some sort of research he's working on. Who the hell knows? I don't know. And in that deep work time, he only spends it doing that one thing. And so the important stuff stays important and it gets prioritized and all the other stuff gets done around that. I think I'm saying that because I know what can happen for me, and I think what can happen for a lot of us is that anything that comes across our desk or through our inbox. It takes up our attention and it feels really important. Like we're just seeing it. It's, oh my gosh, like there's a problem I need to step in. Or, oh my gosh, that's a great idea. I should chase it down, or whatever. You get some sort of spike, whether it's dopamine or cortisol, or who the hell knows. You get some sort of spike and you wanna tend to that thing right away. And in doing so, inadvertently we are decentering and deprioritizing the actual important things that need to get done that are based on the rocks or based on the 90 day projects that you have and connected to your vision and tied in with your vision. Traction organizer as a whole. And so I do actually think in this case that having structure around what is prioritized or what is important. It helps alleviate this as a problem just by nature of existing, you are immediately removing this thing from happening or you're decreasing the possibility of it happening. I should say that. I'm gonna keep going. Let's do question four. What does it cost you cognitively, emotionally, relationally, to stay in the know about everything? Geez, man. Okay, so I know this question is asking about what it costs you. What I am also continuing with internally right now is that I think there are some pros to staying in the know about some. Things, not everything, not all the time. But I will say that there are some things that I do want to stay abreast on. I do want to be in the know on, some things, not at all. I think what it can cost you, what it costs me to stay in the know about everything is that it hijacks my attention. And so if I'm working on a project, for example. I don't have my inbox pulled up and I don't have notifications on my computer, and I will turn my phone either off or set it to the side or something because I. I don't wanna be distracted. Like I don't want my attention to be hijacked by something. So if I was working on a project and I had my inbox open, not only am I gonna see that fucking number, which is huge, always in my case of the number of emails in my inbox, in case that's not clear. But also, if something comes through, I might hear a ping, or I might see the number increase, or I might get some sort of notification on my desktop. I don't, but you might, you know? And. I'm going to probably stop depending on what that subject header says, and shift over here and then get pulled into something. I know for me, this is something that I have had to actively work on, not the, uh, notification itself, but when something lands in my inbox and it's quick to solve and I know the answer. I have been known to respond and either say the answer or attempt to solve it quickly. What the problem is with that for the record is that. The problem becomes that I am doing the job of somebody else. And that has been an issue for me where I see something and I'm like, oh, I can do that. Boop, boop, boop, shoot off some sort of reply, and then all of a sudden I'm getting a message from Taylor saying, Tara, I need you to chill the fuck out. Like, you know that that's something I can respond to. Taylor is my integrator for those who don't know, or from Molly, my DCO saying like, Hey. You know, I got that bro. Right? And so I've done their job not well either because at some point they're doing this much better than you know, especially like in the beginning maybe I was still doing some things, but once we're like moving and shaking, it's them, they know it best it, I'm basically creating problems by stepping in and responding. I'm literally just letting my attention be taken over by something that I don't even need to think about. And so if I do stay in the know, like with emails for example, it does cost me all those things. It might get stuck in my brain. I might have an emotional response, and then I'm going to maybe check in in advance of. Somebody else responding, like Taylor responding in a thread, I might email her or text her and say, Hey, did you see this? What do you think about blah, blah, blah, blah. You know? And then I'm talking to her about something that she can very easily handle. What she has done that has been really effective is that she basically says to people, don't email Tara. Don't copy her onto the emails. If anything needs to go to her, I will handle it. That has been incredible because. I don't know any better, first of all, like I'm none the wiser on the things that are not going well that then get fixed by the people who are in the right roles. And if something is important, it's still gonna come to me. Seriously, that's been incredible. But I am thinking about, you know, I didn't always have a tailor in place, not in the role that she is right now. Anyway. I didn't always have a DCO in place like this. And so. There were much higher costs without the right people in place when it was just me or when it was me, and like people in less weighty leadership team roles. The cost was that I had to try to figure out quickly if this was a right now problem, a next week problem, a not actually a problem, just some emotionality a reaction from another person or a a something el. I mean, it's like. You then have to do all of this assessing whenever you get this email, whatever that email might be, or some feedback on something related to a project, for example, to figure out is this something I need to respond to and if so by when? And so it's like not, you have to like organize and assess the importance of it. And so there's all of this, like to me that feels like mental gymnastics. Maybe some people do that well I don't do that well, and so it's hard to stay in the know without them being overly involved. And then once I am in the know, even if I'm not yet overly involved, I'm still like running these like assessment type scenarios in my brain. And now I'm wondering, did Taylor follow up with that? Did Molly follow up with that? Did glow follow up with that? And it's taking up background noise, like it's still, you know, um, leaching away my energy stores, like any sort of attention that I could be spending over here is now listening to this little voice in the background. So, yeah, I think ultimately it, it costs a lot to stay in the know, for me. It costs a lot at this point, maybe not always, maybe back then it didn't. Have the same level of cost, but now it's, it's in excess of what I want to spend. That's what I will say. Okay. Question five. How do leaders start mistaking awareness for effectiveness? Oh, interesting. How do leaders start mistaking awareness for effectiveness? Okay, so this might sound weird, but what comes to mind for me here is that dogs maybe all species, but I know dogs will get a hit of testosterone when they quote, win in an interaction. I am really pissed. I can't remember if this also relates to people, but I think that it does, that there's like a testosterone hit after, you know, winning an interaction. That's what I'm thinking of, how leaders start mistaking awareness for effectiveness. I think that it probably gives us a sense of. Well probably control. I do like being quote in the know, and I also like being not in the know, but when I am in the know, I feel like I can anticipate what might happen. So there's a faulty, if I'm being realistic, but a sense of control, even though faulty. I think also there's something about, it's almost like this. Feeling of I've done something, like I'm aware, okay, I am good. Like I'm, I'm good to go. Like something about, like, I'm winning by being aware something about I'm staying in tune, so I'm moving. If anything happens, I can't anticipate what might happen. I'll, I'll work to make this better. I'll do this other thing. And the reality is that nothing. Has actually changed other than you might have some awareness of something and that's it. But I think it gives us this sense of, again, maybe power control, ability to affect change if we need to, and we then translate that to being effective. And then we end up wanting to stay on top of everything. It feels good to know, like we need to stay on top of everything and at some point, I know in my case, shit, I mean that turns into staying on top of everything is being too informed and having too much information coming my way. But I think that that's how it happens. I don't, I'm actually really interested in this from like a biological perspective. What happens? When we get some sort of awareness and how does that then translate into effectiveness? I wonder if this is more about like physiology, like something like cortisol or dopamine or testosterone instead of, I don't even know. Something else I don't know. But that's a really interesting question. Also, if that is the case, then it would be how do you start to distinguish when that's happening and like try to actively do something different or move away from doing it? Because the outcome of continuing to mistake awareness for effectiveness is the inundation of everything happening, you know, of like being in the know about everything. And then that just, I think, again, becomes kind of all consuming and exhausting. So, okay. Sixth and final question, what gets lost when you're constantly tracking information instead of actually thinking, whoa, I love this question in my mind, what gets lost is foresight that gets lost. Also, percolating. Where you have information and you don't exactly know what to do with it yet, but it's in your brain and it's, it's percolating in the background, but it can only percolate when you are actively doing other things that are low stakes and low maintenance, like taking a shower, like going for a hike, like working out or doing stretches or having dinner with your family or drinking tea or something. But if we are spending all of our time. Taking in information in every which way that we can constantly checking our phones for email updates or looking at metrics when you're finishing up dinner or going on a hike, but you're, you know, listening to a meeting that was recorded that you weren't able to catch. Like all of that just blocks your ability to think and thinking, I don't, hmm. I think my husband and I disagree on this a little bit. Maybe not actually too much thinking is not always an active process. It's a passive process at times. We have to let our brains actually rest as well, and that's when we have these gamma spikes, actually these eureka moments. So the percolating, the letting your brain sort of come down and rest allows for those aha. Eureka, again, gamma spikes to take place if you're constantly tracking information. Instead of actually thinking, or again, allowing your brain to rest, so that thinking can take place passively. You don't have the big insights. And so I think if you're constantly tracking information, it also feels like not being able to see the forest for the trees, like if you're going from, you know, um. Tree to tree to tree and you're inspecting bark and you're doing all this stuff and it's real granular and real fine grained and real nitty gritty and small and detailed. You might be walking to the edge of the forest when you're trying to really stay centered and maybe get closer to the trail, but you're so caught up. You, I like, we get so caught up in all of these little details that we don't take. A second or take a step back and like look bigger. It's hard to look big whenever you are tracking information constantly. So I think that what gets lost is honestly your ability to navigate the bigger vision, but also your ability to let your brain have insights and eureka moments. I think a lot gets lost. Really. Okay. Those are the questions. I'm gonna move on to this scenario. So anytime we do an owner's room scenario, it is just me reading a scenario and then kind of talking through if I was this person or if I was working with this person, what are some things that come to mind? Alright, here we go. You being a group practice owner or a practice leader have access to everything, emails, messages, metrics, team updates, conversations, side notes, emotional undercurrents. None of it is inappropriate for you to know. In fact, it all feels like part of being a good leader. But over time, your brain never gets to rest from the intake of information. You are constantly orienting, updating, tracking, and holding. When decisions come up, they feel harder than they should, not because they're complex, but because everything surrounding them is loud. You're not uninformed. You are oversaturated, and the cost is subtle. Discernment starts to dull. Urgency spreads evenly across everything, and the leadership begins to feel heavier without a clear reason why. Goodness gracious. You know what I wish I knew in some of these scenarios is whether or not the main character in this, is it a protagonist? In a scenario? It could be whether or not they have a leadership team, because if this person had a leadership team, of course I'm gonna say take it to them and have a discussion. I think that's a big duh. But also I would. Be curious about their sort of core responsibilities and if there is stuff that this person is doing that from a role alignment perspective belongs elsewhere. So that's one thing is sort of thinking about the accountability chart in a way. And then again, leadership responsibilities from that accountability chart. The second thing that's coming up for me is there is maybe not, but in my mind, and I know for myself, there has got to be something emotional about all of this for this person. So this constantly, orienting, updating tracking, holding the, being in tune with emails, messages, metrics, team updates, conversations, side notes, emotional undercurrents. I love all of those things. Yeah, I do. It's true. And. My love of those things is tied to very specific parts of me, and I think that having a sense of those parts, of course, there's always my little butters part who's keyed in with emotionality of other people and sort of constant worry about if everything's okay, but I'm thinking about. What is it about knowing all of this stuff, what is it about feeling like it's all required to be a good leader? What is it about the constantly, the orienting, the updating, the tracking, et cetera? What is it about all of those things that I don't know about equates, but like points to good leadership? I, I don't know. To me there's something, sure, we could say values-based, but like there's gotta be something emotional there or something potentially fear-based. Like if I'm not doing these things and something falls through, it's all gonna fall apart. It could be about, if it all falls apart, I'm financially ruined, or people will think less of me, or I'll be seen as a shitty boss if I don't remember this one specific thing or. Fill in the blank with whatever your sort of fear is. You know, it makes me wonder though, what is the fear? Like, is there fear that serving as a driver for all of this and slash or is there something about, there's actually people in place who could handle some of this stuff, but it has historically been yours to own, and so it's just. Hard to know. Like, I can, I can let go of this thing. Hard to trust, maybe. Hard to trust. Hard to know. Hard to know what it looks like to let go of it. So the actual, I don't wanna say delegation, but I think there's something about delegating ownership. There we go. Delegating ownership of these things, or some of these things feels, I mean, just real fraught, you know? Like you're not really sure how to do it. If you can do it. What it looks like when something goes wrong. I know in some cases people are really concerned about when their person that they delegate to makes a mistake, and the reality is like, of course they're going to. I mean, it's, it's kind of, I think that's how most people learn is through making mistakes, including me, including you, including all of us, like even as we have come up as leaders in our own practices or as leaders at a practice. We've fucked shit up. Like we have made mistakes and it still probably worked out mostly okay. And so extending that grace to somebody else and saying like, you're gonna mess things up. You also internalizing, maybe internalizing that message. This person is gonna mess something up Also, it's cool because we have. Ways of dealing with that. We have ways of troubleshooting, fixing, problem solving, et cetera. Ultimately, I think that there's some level of like self-assessment that needs to happen here just to figure out what is happening with me that I feel, you know, um, a need to stay not only in the know about all of this stuff, but then also. Updating, holding, tracking, et cetera. To me, the second part, like the, when decisions come up, they feel harder than they should. Yeah. I mean, that is what happens. This is what this whole, all the questions, this whole episode is about that whenever you're oversaturated. It's hard to think clearly. It's hard to see the forest for the trees. It's hard to really tune in to what is important and what is not that important, I don't mean to sound flippant, but it's like, well, yeah, that's a given. Like if you're doing everything again, everything's gonna feel important and slash or it's gonna be really fucking hard to decide on anything because. I don't know which is more important, this or that. I don't know why it's more important I have it at any time to think or digest, or not even take in more information, but just synthesize the information that I have living inside of my brain already. So that part feels almost like. Kind of a duh, like, yeah, of course that is what's gonna happen. But the problem isn't necessarily that you can't make decisions. The problem is that you, it's the oversaturated piece, of course. And so if that is the case, and again, I, I think I said earlier, this isn't about, um, hacks around systems or prioritization or any of that stuff. And what I will also say is that. I would encourage self-assessment if you are a person who is taking on everything. I do think there is self-assessment as well as maybe accountability chart assessment. Is there anybody. In a role, do I have a role or seat that captures some of the stuff that I'm doing? Like has core responsibilities that should actually be overseeing what I'm overseeing? If so, do I have the right person in that seat? If so, why haven't I passed this over to them entirely? What am I missing? What would it need for me to actually pass this over so I can get it outta my head? That also includes training people to stop coming to you with certain questions. As a fun side note, so. I'm not sure that I have anything else about this. Oh, I'm so sorry. I do. Leadership begins to feel heavier without a clear reason why. Yeah. That to me feels like the, um, atlas holding up the sky piece, the constant weight. You know, your hair starts to turn gray, everything feels heavy, and you're still being tasked with thinking, processing, synthesizing, holding, et cetera. It is just logistical overload. It's not actually possible to do so. Um, of course it would feel heavier and there's no clear, one clear reason why because it's, it's the weight of everything spread out across a bunch of domains. Not that I would know anything about that, 'cause I've never been in that situation. I absolutely have. I'm totally being facetious. If I had to say one thing, if you are in this situation, like if you are a person who is. You find yourself nodding along with scenario one like, oh my God. Yeah, that's exactly what it is for me. Um, I think that, I would say this is not gonna be a remedy for the record, but I do think there's something to say about scheduling yourself even an hour and a half, an hour if you don't have an hour and a half, just one hour per week. Two would be ideal. Where you put your phone away, I mean like legit to the side. Like turn that shit off and close your laptop and don't look at it. Get out a journal or some loose leaf paper, whatever you wanna write on. Get a fucking Sharpie or some sort of pen or pencil and start writing. Start journaling. Start. Asking yourself questions about high level things related to the business. Gino Wickman calls this a clarity break. If you've never taken one, you should. I have the questions documented on the website, taravossenkemper.com/clarity-break. Download them, print them out. Go sit by yourself and answer them. Again, no technology, nothing that connects you. The idea is that you are just spending time. Thinking high level, you're not getting stuck in nitty gritty. You're not problem solving. You're not doing anything hyper detailed or working on a tech issue. You are attempting to see the forest for the trees. That's what you're trying to do with a clarity break. And that's all I have to say about that. First and foremost as we wrap this up, thank you for being here with me. Highly value your time as per usual. Secondly, if this kind of leadership processing is helpful, subscribe so you don't have to remember to come back later because you know as well as I do that that shit is not gonna happen. If it's not written down, it doesn't happen. Second of all, share this episode with a friend who you think needs to hear it because we've all been there, so the more the merrier. Other than that, it's great seeing you and I will see you in the next episode. Thanks. Bye.